


The Ghost and his Boy: A Sestina

by celestialskiff



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina">sestina</a> about Hikaru and Sai and their friendship with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost and his Boy: A Sestina

Casting no shadow in the moonlit room, the ghost  
Pondered the board in front of him. He couldn't touch  
The patterns of white go stones,  
Bright in the dimness, and worn smooth  
With years of play, or the boy's sleeping hands,  
Open on the bedsheets. Only his fan

Had weight: it was old and familiar, this fan,  
But it too had lost its smell and substance. Sad, the ghost  
Stroked the board with his shapely hands,  
And felt nothing, and resigned himself to wait for the boy's touch.  
The boy was brash and loud and confusing, but his smooth  
Fingers were quick and he understood the shapes of the stones.

When the boy woke he noticed first the stones,  
Not the ghost, and he knelt by the board. An electric fan  
Hummed loud in the room, and among the smooth  
Bedsheets and the drum of distant traffic the ghost  
Felt lost. When he saw the boy's fingers touch  
The board and make a clever move his hands

Ached with longing, but he could only point. Later, the boy's hands  
Felt empty even when he submerged them in the go stones  
And though he sat by the board and listened to the touch  
Of shell on wood, and played well, he missed the fan,  
The swift, fluid games with the ghost.  
Without his constant friend, the voice smooth

As feathers in his head, his bedsheets were smooth  
Because he couldn't sleep in them and his hands  
Were restless. Looking for his ghost  
He went on a long, hot journey, but found only stones,  
Silent boards and a handful of soil. He longed to hear a fan  
Opening, and see the ghost trying to touch

The wide board. He couldn't resist the touch  
Of the board for long, and slowly his smooth  
Plays consoled him. Then one night he dreamt of the fan  
And the inscrutable smile, and soft hands  
Deft and delicate as they handled the stones.  
In dreams, they parted warmly, he and the ghost.

Sometimes he heard the boy touch the board and felt the ghost  
Of a move as he stretched, smooth, far from the cold stones  
And the quick fan, and he smiled as he thought of the boy's clever hands.


End file.
